Philly:

Nick and I ventured to the City of Brotherly Love for the weekend. We ate cheesesteak in Reading Market and stood in Rocky's footprints on the steps of the art museum, blah blah blah. What made the weekend truly memorable was our Sunday morning in the Italian neighborhood of South Philly.


I light up like a kid at Christmas anytime I'm around something or someone that might be Authentically Italian. Maybe it's because I grew up in the Northwest where everyone was of either German or German descent, but Italy has always fascinated me. Luckily my husband doesn't find this incredibly dorky, even when I stage whispered that the people at the next table in the coffee shop were speaking Italian!


My "amore d'Italia" notwithstanding, the scene that transpired in one of the little market shops truly made the weekend. All along the Italian Market are tiny little shops selling Italian food staples, such as olive oil, fresh pasta, cured meats and cheeses. I still can't figure out if the meat or the cheese gives the shop its distinctive funk, but smells just like every shop in Italy. Anyway, these shops are about half the size of your average Manhattan studio apartment and crammed to the rafters with jars, bottles, hams and shoppers.

While we were salivating over the 20 varieties of ravioli, the inevitable happened. One of the shoppers, a little old lady, knocked a sampling dish of tomato sauce off the counter with her purse. Yes, I am also amazed that it was her and not me. Anyway, it caused a bit of a commotion- she didn't realize what had happened, then there was all the red sauce to clean up, which a younger man helped wipe off her shoes and the floor. She got a dollar bill out of her purse and tried to tip him, which both the Good Samaritan and the woman's grown daughter found fairly embarrassing. ("Mom. Stop.")

The circus finally ended and business resumed, but somehow in the shuffle one of the regular patrons (also a little old lady) got overlooked and ended up waiting significantly past her turn. As we got up to the register, she was letting the clerks have it.

"I'm gonna blow this place up," she said. "You're lucky I like you guys, or you'd be covered in lunchmeat."

Not the kind of thing you usually hear from little old ladies, but then again this was the Italian neighborhood. Even Don Corleone has to have a grandma.